On grandma’s internet, a company called eBay made a boatload of moolah by skimming a piece off the top of thousands of counterfeit Louis Vuitton purses.  Vuitton wasn’t amused, and pressured eBay to end the sale of counterfeit bags, even though ironically the auctions didn’t prevent a single legitimate sale.  After all, buyers of ridiculously expensive plastic purses were not looking to eBay for knock-offs. But it did dilute their brand.

But where was the message from the feds that this must stop, that this new-fangled internet could hurry the downfall of civilization by providing an outlet for cheap ladies’ accessories?  It’s not that the silence was deafening, but that everyone understood that the internet was going through growing pains, and part of those pains involved dealing with its use by those who might use the new forum for illicit purposes.

Yet, when time came for SDNY Judge Katherine Forrest to impose sentence on convicted Silk Road impresario Ross Ulbricht, it was all about the message.

Ahead of Ulbricht’s sentencing Friday, prosecutors in his case have sent the judge a 16-page letter asking that Ulbricht be given “a lengthy sentence, one substantially above the mandatory minimum.” And one of the reasons for that harsh sentence, the Department of Justice attorneys argue, is to “send a clear message” to anyone who would follow in Ulbricht’s footsteps and create the next Dark Web drug market.

Continue reading →

Today is Day Three of Fault Lines, and for the benefit of you slackers who haven’t yet bothered to read — and show me the love, do I ask for too much? — here’s what you missed thus far:

WELCOME TO FAULT LINES: MONITORING AMERICA’S CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

PLEADING DIRTY: DO PLEA BARGAINS CORRUPT THE SYSTEM?

POLICE BRUTALITY: FROM MICHAEL BROWN TO MICHAEL BRELO

TSA SECURITY THEATER: WHEN THE SHOW BOMBS

“PERFECT STORM” FOR POLICE REFORM: WHY CLEVELAND MIGHT BE DIFFERENT

SORRY, SCOTUS DIDN’T SAY WHAT YOU WANTED IT TO SAY IN ELONIS

Aside from my posts, Fault Lines has posts from Cristian Farias, slumming from his writing at New York Magazine, Tamara Tabo, slumming from her teaching at Thurgood Marshall Law School in Houston and Greg Prickett, a 20-year police vet who practices law in Fort Worth.

Each brings their own perspective and style to Fault Lines. It’s worth your time to take a look, guaranteed or a full refund.

For a brief and shining moment, sanity returned to journalism as Sabrina Rubin Erdely was revealed to have sold a lie about a rape that never happened.  The University of Virginia was not amused. Rolling Stone magazine retracted the story and apologized for sucking.  Erdely was found walking down dark alleyways, bumping into walls, over and over, mumbling “so what, so what?”

It almost seemed as if the media remembered the one word that required a trigger warning more than any other: facts.  Then the moment devolved into another word, excuses, and spittle shot from advocates’ mouth, striking anyone within earshot.

At the New Republic, freelance writer Jessica Luther seeks to rehabilitate advocacy journalism with an argument against facts, against relying on evidence when there are feelings to be told.  She begins by taking issue with Mike Taibbi’s offer of a very cautious approach:

Then Taibbi, without being asked, offered some advice on how to report on sexual assault. “One way around that, you know, would be for people to cover cases that have already been adjudicated… so that the reporters don’t have to go out on a limb to say that this or that happened. They can rely on something that happened, that’s already been proven in court,” he said.

Continue reading →

The United States Supreme Court issues its long-awaited decision in Elonis v. United States. How cool is that?

Via Ken White at Popehat:

So what did the Supreme Court do?

Screw everything up.

Wut

The Supreme Court could have ruled on just Section 875(c) — it could have just said “this statute requires proof of subjective intent.” It could have gone further and ruled on the First Amendment, saying “the First Amendment requires subjective intent to prove a true threat” or that the First Amendment doesn’t require that.

Instead, seven justices ruled that Section 875(c) requires the government to prove something more than what it did, but not exactly what.

Continue reading →

That bastion of deep thought and tabloid integrity, the New York Post, asks the question:

Just how many New Yorkers must die before Mayor de Blasio lets cops bring back stop-and-frisk?

Stacey Calhoun has a right to know. His nephew Jahhad Marshall — a 23-year-old aspiring chef — was caught in the crossfire and shot to death in Queens early Saturday, one of four horrific murders this weekend.

“We need stop-and-frisk,” a teary-eyed Calhoun told The Post. “Somebody has to put their foot down.”

There was a crime, a tragedy, and an uncle whose loss demands the evisceration of constitutional rights?  It’s not that Stacey Calhoun should be blamed for the desire to prevent the needless taking of his nephew’s life. Families grasp at anything they can when tragedy strikes. Continue reading →

Remember that “vertical” that caused some consternation?  Well, it’s alive! Meet Fault Lines, the new criminal law and justice section at Mimesis Law.  If you like what you read here (or hate it, we’re not picky about who reads), take a quick trip to Fault Lines, where you will get more pie than ever before.

The good news is that there will be posts from me, as well as Cristian Farias and Tamara Tabo, our inaugural team of writers.  Expect more writers as well, the primary criteria being that they be knowledgeable and honest.  We hope to have people writing from varying perspectives, challenging bias and each other. We look forward to making this as real as it gets when it comes to criminal justice issues.

The better news is that there will be no moderation of comments, except for spam. So if your comments failed to meet the threshold for thoughtfulness here, there is a soapbox for you at Fault Lines.

Now, please show Fault Lines a little love by checking it out. maybe leaving a comment, and adding it to your daily reads.  And no, you didn’t win the contest, but you’re all winners in my book. *hugs*

Public sector unionism was always conceptually flawed.  On the one hand, why should people who work for government be denied the same opportunity to collectively bargain as private sector employees? On the other, the incentives that justified private sector unions didn’t apply to the public sector, making the system untenable. Whoda thought? Me, actually.

But then, my doubts as to the viability of public sector unionism barely scratched the surface of the problem when it came to police unions.  There was another, entirely separate, dynamic at play, and we’re paying for it now.

In a New York Times op-ed, Jonathan Smith,  an associate dean of the law school at the University of the District of Columbia, and formerly a senior litigator in the civil rights division of the Department of Justice, explains what followed the 1960s Kerner Commission report on why minorities were rioting in the inner cities. Continue reading →

Police reports made the killing of Jermaine McBean on Dixie Highway in Oakland Park, Florida, clean as a whistle.  Carrying a rifle as he walked down the street, a call to 911 brought police to the scene. Broward County Deputy Peter Peraza arrived and says he told McBean to drop the gun.  Peraza says McBean turned and pointed the rifle at him, so he killed him. A righteous shoot.

Except for the damn photograph.

After Florida police shot Jermaine McBean to death as he walked home with an unloaded air rifle, they said there was no reason to believe he did not hear their orders to drop the weapon and that he pointed it at them.

But a newly emerged photo that shows headphones in McBean’s ears immediately after the 2013 shooting raises questions about the police version of events, including why the white earbuds were later found stuffed in the dead computer expert’s pocket.

Continue reading →